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White House talks on Iraq’s Camp Ashraf draw protesters

December 12, 2011 by

CNN

Washington (CNN) — Several prominent Americans joined Iranian opposition activists Monday in a noisy demonstration outside the White House, urging President Obama to discuss what may soon happen at a refugee camp as the United States leaves Iraq.

Masked demonstrators rally Monday outside the White House to protest plans to close a refugee camp in Iraq. CNN

The Iraqi government plans to close Camp Ashraf northeast of Baghdad at the end of December, without clear assurances the refugees will be protected against attacks by Iraqi forces and reprisals from neighboring Iran.

The camp is home to more than 3,000 people described as Iranian resistance figures and their sympathizers. The group, known as MEK or the People’s Mujahidin of Iran, has been designated by the United States as a terrorist organization. Some GOP lawmakers are calling on the Obama administration to lift that designation and officials say that is under review.

The demonstrators rallied as Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki met with President Obama at the White House.

Among those leading the rally was former U.S. Sen. Robert Torricelli, a Democrat from New Jersey.

“When President Obama welcomed Mr. Maliki to the White House he may have noticed something,” Torricelli told the crowd. “When he took his hand back, there was blood on it.”

Torricelli said, “That is the blood of the innocent people of Camp Ashraf.” Torricelli said he believes they have been tortured and killed by Iraqi forces under the Maliki regime.

Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge followed Torricelli to offer a simple plea as the Iraqi leader met with Obama, “to insist that the Maliki government extend the deadline, to ensure the protection of the 3,400 residents of Camp Ashraf.”

The group believes the current regime in Iraq, under orders from al-Maliki, has twice staged deadly attacks that have killed nearly 50 people. When word of such an attack in April came out, it was described as a “massacre” by the chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. John Kerry, D-Massachusetts.

Since 2004, the United States has considered the residents of Camp Ashraf “noncombatants” and “protected persons” under the Geneva Conventions. A United Nations commission on refugees has described those at Camp Ashraf as “formal asylum seekers” against persecution by the regime in Iran.

U.S. forces have handed security of Camp Ashraf to the Iraqi government as American forces depart.

Those at the rally outside the White House on Monday suggested Iran is hoping al-Maliki and Iraq will expose thousands of people opposed to the government in Tehran by closing the camp and not providing safeguards.

Some called for a United Nations-led force of “blue helmets” to provide security for those living at the camp.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/12/politics/iraqi-refugee-camp-protest/index.html

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Demonstrators Call On Obama To Protect Iranian Dissidents

December 12, 2011 by

RTTNews 

White House Rally Calls on Obama for Protection of Iranian Dissidents in Camp Ashraf

Hundreds of protesters gathered Monday outside the White House gates ahead of a meeting here between President Barack Obama and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

The crowd called on Obama to help protect those at Camp Ashraf, home to 3,400 Iranian dissidents in Iraq.

Demonstrators said they fear that with U.S. combat forces leaving Iraq the al-Maliki government will evict the Iranian exiles from Camp Ashraf and deport them back to Iran, where they could face almost-certain death for their opposition to government leaders in the Islamic republic.

Located just 60-miles from the Iraqi border with Iran, Camp Ashraf has been the site of alleged human rights abuses. The unarmed dissidents have been attacked twice by Iraqi military forces. Nine exiles were killed in July 2009; this year, 36 were killed in April.

Dozens of members of Congress have urged Obama to use his meeting with al-Maliki to press for the protection of the dissidents.

by RTT Staff Writer

http://www.rttnews.com/Content/PoliticalNews.aspx?Node=B1&Id=1779501

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Will Obama live up to his Nobel Prize qualifications?

December 12, 2011 by

UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL

LONDON, Dec. 12 (UPI) — Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is to visit U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House. He also is wanted for questioning by Spanish courts for crimes that have taken place at Camp Ashraf, home to 3,400 Iranian dissidents in Iraq, in July 2009 and April 2011under his orders. These courts are waiting for his term of office to end to summon him.

Last week in Brussels, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, a presidential candidate and chairman of the Democratic National Committee at the time Obama was elected, challenged Obama to live up to the qualifications of the Nobel Peace Prize he was given the first year he was in office.

He said the president had till the end of December to show the world he was worthy of that Nobel Prize. He also added: “Mr. President, we do have a responsibility. We gave our word to Ashraf residents and we gave it in writing. We have a responsibility. It is a legal responsibility. I do not want my country to be complicit in the carrying out of war crimes, as the Dutch found out in Srebrenica.”

In that same conference Alan Dershowitz, professor of law at Harvard University, said, “The potential war criminals who run the Iranian regime are so anxious to see Camp Ashraf shut down because they are planning the mass killing of the largest concentration of witnesses to their crimes in the world today, those who are living in Camp Ashraf in Iraq.

“If the president of the U.S. does not demand a change in the Iraqi government’s commitment to close the camp, his silence will be taken as acquiescence, and that is so dangerous, silent acquiescence.”

As the unworkable deadline set by Maliki to avoid questions about the massacre on April 8, 2011, at Ashraf nears the fingers are more and more pointed to the one man that can make the difference. After all, Maliki is a child of America’s war in Iraq. If it was not for American lives and finances, Maliki would not be in the position he is in today.

Obama must make it abundantly clear to Maliki during their meeting that America didn’t sacrifice all it has so that he could show this blatant disregard for international law.

Almost all the other world leaders have done so one way or the other. This week in the U.N. Security Council meeting, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressly filed concern over the situation and asked the Iraqi government to set aside the unworkable deadline of Dec. 31 and to let the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees complete its work. Catherine Ashton, the EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Affairs also voiced concern and asked Iraq to let the UNHCR carry out its mandate.

These demands on their own carry little weight. It is well within America’s remit and is in fact its obligation to make sure a government which it created does not carry out war crimes. The world is again moving towards a predictable massacre, a crime against humanity like those in Rwanda and Srebrenica. Yet those leaders who can and must do what is necessary to stop it are doing nothing.

In a world summit in Berlin in July 2008, Ban regarding Responsibility to Protect said: “It would be neither sound morality, nor wise policy, to limit the world’s options to watching the slaughter of innocents or to send in the marines. The magnitude of these four crimes and violations demands early, preventive steps — and these steps should require neither unanimity in the Security Council nor pictures of unfolding atrocities that shock the conscience of the world.”

“… We need to enhance U.N. early warning mechanisms, integrating the system’s multiple channels of information and assessment. We need to strengthen the capacities of states to resist taking the path to genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity”, he added.

Where else could these measures be applied more appropriately than in the case of Camp Ashraf?

So the responsibility lies upon all. We have only a few weeks to make use of all these tools described by the secretary-general to prevent another Srebrenica from unfolding.

Time is running out and of course those in high office bear a greater share of the burden.

Our role is to constantly and continuously remind them of their responsibilities. It is in the end, up to them to act responsibly. Otherwise they could be accused of complicity in yet another preventable crime against humanity.

Let us hope this time world leaders live up to their collective responsibility and prevent another slaughter in Ashraf. Obama is top on the list of those who would be held accountable should such genocide occur.

(Lord Tarsem King of West Bromwich is a member of British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom.” 

Read more: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Analysis/Outside-View/2011/12/12/Outside-View-Will-Obama-live-up-to-his-Nobel-Prize-qualifications/UPI-35681323695866/#ixzz1gg2UJaKj

Filed Under: Camp Ashraf, News

UN-Iraq calls on Europe to take Iranian camp members

December 12, 2011 by

AFP

BAGHDAD – European states should agree to accept members of an exiled Iranian group whose base in Iraq is being threatened with closure at year-end, the United Nations’ special envoy to Baghdad said on Monday.

Martin Kobler also called for the Iraqi government to extend the date of the closure of Camp Ashraf, which has been home to several thousand members of the People’s Mujahedeen Organization of Iran (PMOI) since the 1980s.

“I appeal to the governments of all UN member states, however in particular to the Europeans, to take Camp Ashraf residents into their countries,” Kobler told AFP following a ceremony to mark International Human Rights Day, which was on December 10.

Kobler said that in addition to “nationals of European countries [living] in Camp Ashraf,” there were around 900 people claiming to have documents relating them in some way to European nationals.

“I hope they will… because there is a danger of confrontation and violence,” he added.

Camp Ashraf, which has become a mounting international problem, has been in the spotlight since a deadly April raid on the camp by Iraqi security forces.

The camp was set up when Iraq and Iran were at war in the 1980s by the PMOI and later came under US control until January 2009, when US forces transferred security for the camp to Iraq.

The PMOI has been on the US government terrorist list since 1997.

Kobler also called for Iraqi authorities to extend what is currently a year-end deadline for the camp’s closure, arguing that “we will not be able to move several thousand people by the end of the year.”

“We are in the middle of negotiations … to bring about a peaceful and durable solution to the problem,” he said, adding: “I will fight until the last day, 31st of December, to bring about a peaceful and durable solution.”

http://www.nowlebanon.com/NewsArchiveDetails.aspx?ID=341886

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The noose tightens around Iranian refugees at Camp Ashraf

December 12, 2011 by

 

The Iraqi government has announced that it plans to close Camp Ashraf, home to more than 3,000 Iranian dissidents by the end of the year. But the decision has put the international community in a difficult position.

During his visit to the US this week, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has a number of issues on the agenda, primarily the December 31, 2011, withdrawal of all US troops from Iraq. But at Camp Ashraf – home to more than 3,000 Iranian dissidents in Iraq – all eyes are set on whether Maliki’s visit could bring a resolution to a looming crisis over the future of the refugee camp.

December 31 also happens to be the deadline set by Maliki’s government to dismantle the camp, which is situated in Iraq’s Diyala province about 60 kilometres north of Baghdad.

A sprawling camp that emerged in the mid-1980s, Camp Ashraf is a base of the People’s Mujahideen Organization of Iran (PMOI), a resistance group opposed to the Iranian theocratic regime and reviled in Tehran. Under former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, the group – which is also called the Mujahideen Khalq – mounted attacks against the Iranian government.

Following the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, the camp was disarmed and secured by US troops until 2009, when the US turned the camp over to the Iraqi government.

Since the handover to the Iraqi government, human rights groups have criticised the Iraqi military of regularly targeting “unarmed dissidents in the camp”. The most recent incident occurred in April, when 34 camp residents were killed, according to the UN.

“Considering the previous dramatic incidents in the camp against its unarmed inhabitants, we can expect the worst, which would mean a new bloodbath if Baghdad implements its [December 31 camp dismantling] decision,” warned Afchine Alavi, a spokesman for the France-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), which is composed mainly of Mujahideen Khalq members.

Alavi was speaking at an international conference in Paris over the weekend, when NCRI members – along with a number of former senior US military and political leaders – called for “urgent action by the international community” to intervene with Iraqi leaders.

UN call for extension of camp closure deadline

The UN has appealed to the Iraqi government to delay the planned December 31 closure of Camp Ashraf, with UN special envoy for Iraq Martin Kobler calling on Maliki’s government to extend the deadline “in order to permit adequate time and space for a solution to be found”.

But the Iraqi government has insisted that the camp must close by the end of the year. Baghdad says Camp Ashraf is a security threat and Iraq’s UN ambassador Hamid al-Bayati maintains that Iraq cannot host any group “which will attack neighboring countries”.

Critics however state that the Iraqi government’s sole purpose for closing down the camp is to please the Iranian government. “No timetable, no interest in Iraq justifies the closure of Camp Ashraf,” said Alavi. “They’re acting solely in Iran’s interests. Iran dictates the terms to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.”

With Baghdad attempting to bolster ties with Iran, the dissidents in Camp Ashraf have become a major irritant to Iraq’s Shiite-led government. Both countries have Shiite majorities and in Iraq, Shiite political groups dominate power with many Iraqi politicians – including Maliki – having spent time in exile in Iran.

Following the December 31, 2011, withdrawal of US troops, there are growing concerns in Washington over Iran’s influence in Iraq.

Lobbying to get struck off the terrorist list

Saturday’s conference in Paris ended with delegates issuing an appeal to US President Barack Obama. “On the eve of the Iraqi Prime Minister’s visit to the United States, we are writing to call for immediate action to prevent a humanitarian crisis in Camp Ashraf in Iraq,” said the final declaration.

The pressure on Washington is no coincidence. Under the Geneva Conventions, the US granted the refugees of Camp Ashraf the status of “protected persons” while maintaining the Mujahideen Khalq on the US list of terrorist organisations.

The EU, on the other hand, removed the group from its “black list” in 2009, following several court rulings. But the group has a shadowy reputation, with the New York-based Human Rights Watch accusing the Mujahideen Khalq of controlling the camp with an iron hand and muzzling residents who challenge its authority.

In a New York Times report, a US State Department official, who declined to be named, said the camp’s leaders “exert total control over the lives of Ashraf’s residents, much like we would see in a totalitarian cult,” requiring fawning devotion to the group’s leaders, Maryam Rajavi, who lives in France, and her husband, Massoud, whose whereabouts are unknown.

Supporters of the group however deny the charges say it has renounced violence and has not engaged in terrorist acts for a decade.

In an interview with FRANCE 24 on the sidelines of Saturday’s conference, Brig. Gen. David Phillips, the commander of the 89th Military Police Brigade of the US Army, which was responsible for the security of Camp Ashraf in 2004, said he found no evidence that the group was a terrorist organisation.

“Initially, when I arrived at Camp Ashraf, I was told simply that they’re a foreign terrorist organisation. I tried very hard to get information as to why they are that type of organisation. I was never able to substantiate any of those allegations, [which was] very frustrating for my soldiers and I,” said Phillips.

As US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton completes a review of the terrorist designation, there has been a massive lobbying effort in the US for a designation reversal.

The lobbying effort has won high profile supporters in the US, including Andrew Card, President George W. Bush’s chief of staff, who attended Saturday’s conference in Paris.

“I’m a very strong advocate of their being taken off that list,” said Card in an interview with FRANCE 24. “I hope that the Obama administration will move quickly to make sure they’re no longer on the State Department terrorist list.”

Card maintains that the US bears a responsibility to protect the residents of Camp Ashraf and that Washington’s credibility is at stake following the attacks in the camp after the 2009 camp handover to Iraqi forces. “We want to make very sure that the word that America gave to the people of Camp Ashraf that they will be protected is respected by Prime Minister Maliki,” said Card.

In a December 6 column in the Washington Post, Maliki noted that “the camp’s residents are classified as a terrorist organisation by many countries and thus have no legal basis to remain in Iraq,” before adding, “No country would accept the presence of foreign insurgents on its soil, but we will work hard to find a peaceful solution that upholds the international values of human rights.”

Finding a peaceful resolution to the current crisis is just what the residents of Camp Ashraf want. But the clock is ticking and for the more than 3,000 camp residents, there is little guarantee of what the New Year will bring.

 

Filed Under: Luminaries, News Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

An Iranian political agenda exists to force Mujahedin E-Khalq out of Iraq

December 12, 2011 by

Aswat al-Iraq

BAGHDAD /Aswat al-Iraq –  The official spokesman of al-Iraqiya List, led by former PrimeMinister Iyad Allawi, has said on Monday that “there is a politicalagenda, moved by Iran to give an impression for the expulsion of theanti-Tehran Mujahedin El-Khalq organization’s residents from east Iraq’s AshrafCamp.”

“Thepolitical agenda is known to be moved by the Iranian Regime and does notreflect the real wish of the Iraqi people, which we surely reject and thinkthat our previous position had been a position of principle, because the caseof residents of Ashraf Camp was based on International agreements and theGeneva Treaty,” Haider al-Mulla said in a statement, copy of which was receivedby Aswat al-Iraq news agency.

“TheIraqi government has no other alternative but to lean to the statement of theUN Secretary-General’s Representative, and we believe that the HigherCommission for the Immigrants Affair possesses realistic mechanisms to settlethis dossier, whilst talk about moving the residents of Ashraf Camp from Diyalato another Iraqi province inside Iraq is part of an Iranian agenda, aimed atliquidating Mujahedin El-Khalq’s elements,” he said.

The Iraqigovernment had issued a decision to put an end for the presence of the saidOrganization in Iraq before the end of 2011, charging it with being,” aterrorist organization that had shared in killing Iraqis.

The anti-TehranMujahedin E-Khalq organization is based in Ashraf Camp in northeast Iraq’sDiala Province, for which it had moved after shifting its command into Iraq in1985, where it had enjoyed support by the previous Iraqi regime, in its attacksagainst Iran. 

SKH (TS)/SR

http://ku.aswataliraq.info/(S(gqhfqs55lggfedazi2vfrs45))/Default1.aspx?page=article_page&id=132633&l=1

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SAVING CAMP ASHRAF

December 12, 2011 by

THE WASHINGTON TIMES

More than 60 members of Congress and a human rights commission named for the only Holocaust survivor to serve in the House are urging President Obama to use his Monday meeting with the prime minister of Iraq to demand he protect Iranian dissidents in Camp Ashraf.

The letters sent to the White House on Friday are the latest developments in a growing U.S. campaign to prevent Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki from closing the former military base north of Baghdad by the end of this month.

More than 3,400 Iranian exiles fear the Iraqi government will evict them from Camp Ashraf and deport many of them to Iran, where they face execution as opponents of the brutal theocratic regime.

U.S. supporters of the Camp Ashraf residents are expected to protest outside the White House during Mr. Obama’s meeting with Mr. al-Maliki. Speakers at the 11 a.m. rally will include former FBI Director Louis J. Freeh, former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, former Pennsylvania Gov. Edward G. Rendell and former Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy, Rhode Island Democrat, the protest organizers said.

In their letter, the 66 members of Congress expressed their distrust of Mr. al-Maliki because he broke his promise to protect the Camp Ashraf residents after U.S. forces turned over control of the compound to Iraq in 2009.

American forces disarmed the dissidents in 2003, after the U.S. invasion of Iraq overthrew dictator Saddam Hussein. The United States treated the camp residents as “protected persons” under the Geneva Conventions.

Iraqi forces twice attacked the unarmed dissidents, killing nine people in July 2009 and 36 in April this year. They wounded hundreds in both assaults.

“Our lack of trust in Mr. Maliki is well-founded,” the House members said.

“It is imperative that Mr. Maliki understand, in the clearest terms, that harm to Camp Ashraf residents will be met with severe consequences from the United States.”

The signatories on the bipartisan letter spanned the political spectrum from liberals of the Congressional Black Caucus to conservative tea party members.

The letter from the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission emphasized the need for U.N. officials to have more time to interview all Camp Ashraf residents who have applied for refugee status. The commission added that Mr. al-Maliki would violate a U.N. treaty on civil and political rights by forcibly relocating the Iranian dissidents.

The commission, formerly known as the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, was named after the late Tom Lantos, a California Democrat and only Holocaust survivor to serve in the House.

Mr. al-Maliki has partially based his decision to expel the dissidents on the inclusion of the group, called the Mujahedin-e Khalq, on the U.S. terrorist list, although the State Department is under a court order to review the group’s status.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/dec/11/embassy-row-152434741/

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Iraq’s Looming Massacre of Iranian MEK Refugees

December 9, 2011 by

THE DAILY BEAST

 When the last U.S. troops leave Dec. 31, Iraqi forces will destroy Camp Ashraf, home to thousands of Iranian refugees belonging to the MEK. Geoffrey Robertson on the appalling human-rights tragedy unfolding.

The time bomb that is ticking toward a new human-rights disaster is near Baghdad, in a 25-acre compound, where 3,400 refugees from Iranian religious fascism await the cruelest of fates. Whilst nominally under United Nations protection, 36 of them have been killed by Iraqi forces already this year, and Dec. 31, the deadline for the U.S. troop pullout, is likely to be their deadline as well. The Iraqi government, under pressure from Iran, has announced that on that very same date it will demolish Camp Ashraf.

The camp houses the remnants of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK)—once described by Ayatollah Khomeini as “a syncretic mix of Marxism and Islam.” It started in Tehran universities in the late 1960s, attracting idealistic students who fought guerrilla battles against the shah’s secret police, but whose dreams of a secular state were soon dashed by the rule of the ayatollah. Hundreds were killed in student protests by his Revolutionary Guards, whilst thousands were arrested and then executed or (if lucky) sentenced to long prison terms.

Some escaped to Paris, but the fickle French expelled them in 1986 under pressure from Iran. They had nowhere to go but Iraq, where Saddam Hussein welcomed them to Camp Ashraf and used them as a “Free Iran” force. After the truce in 1988, Khomeini issued a secret fatwa ordering that all MEK supporters in Iranian prisons should be killed. In a bloodbath that ranks as the worst prisoner-of-war atrocity since the Japanese death marches at the end of World War II, thousands were summarily executed, under the orders of Ali Khamenei, then Iran’s president and now its supreme leader, and Hashemi Rafsanjani.

Camp Ashraf remained. Its residents were protected under the Geneva Conventions and were in any event refugees unable to return to Iran because of a well-founded fear—indeed, a certainty—that they would be executed both as traitors and as mohareb, or enemies of God. After the invasion in 2003, the U.S. formally recognized the MEK as having the status of “protected persons” under the Geneva Conventions. Their weapons were decommissioned by the U.S. forces, and every Ashraf resident signed a written agreement denouncing terrorism and rejecting violence. In return, the U.S. promised to protect them until their final disposition. They built roads and residential complexes at the camp, with educational, social, and sports facilities, and infrastructure worth millions of dollars.

On Oct. 7, 2005, the deputy commander of the U.S.-led coalition forces praised the residents of Camp Ashraf for “working together in the spirit of common humanitarianism,” and confirmed the coalition’s endorsement of their right to be protected from violence and their right as refugees not to be “refouled”; i.e., sent back to Iran. Their safety seemed assured, especially after the MEK did the world a service by revealing Iran’s secret nuclear facility at Natanz. That, of course, merely deepened the Iranian regime’s hatred of them, and it began intense diplomatic pressure on Iraq to close down Camp Ashraf.

Once the U.S. troop pullout began in 2008, the pressure started to have an effect. The Iraqi government formally demanded that it should take over security at the camp because the MEK was a “terrorist organization.” Gen. David Petraeus insisted that they were “protected persons” and U.S. forces would defend them. But Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki announced his determination to “put an end” to the MEK. As soon as all U.S. combat forces had left, he ordered a joint Army and police attack on the camp. In July 2009, U.S. military observers watched helplessly as Iraqi forces besieged and then attacked the camp, killing 11 residents (six were shot, the others beaten to death) and wounding hundreds. The operation was apparently intended to terrify the residents into leaving voluntarily, but instead it steeled their resolve.

Despite an international outcry, Maliki continued the siege of the camp, denying supplies of food and medicine. In early 2011 Iran stepped up its demands that the camp be destroyed. After Camp Grizzly, a nearby U.S. Army observation post, was disbanded, Maliki ordered another murderous assault in April, leaving 35 dead and more than 300 injured with gunshot and shrapnel wounds. Iran immediately congratulated Iraq for its “positive stance that strengthens mutual relations”—presumably a stance that was positive because it included killing innocent people that both governments disliked.

There was, of course, an international outcry. The U.N. commissioner for human rights and the European Union deplored the killings and called for an independent and transparent inquiry, which the lying Maliki promised but never set up. There was hand-wringing at the White House, “deeply troubled” by the casualties, but not troubled enough to do anything to protect the residents from the massacre that is likely when the U.S. troops leave Dec. 31. That is when Maliki’s deadline expires and his Army and police will move in, destroying the camp, whose buildings and facilities are worth millions of dollars, without compensation. Doubtless they will kill residents, just as they recklessly killed them in 2009 and in April 2011, and remove the rest to a prison in Baghdad, ready, perhaps for Iranian interrogators.

International law is clear: the people of Ashraf are refugees, and they are entitled to protection from the kind of brutality that almost certainly awaits them from Maliki’s forces. The U.S. has abandoned them and UNAMI, the remaining U.N. mission, has been pathetic—its “ambassador,” a German diplomat, has refused to meet the residents and has allowed himself to be fobbed off for months by the government. He is not even objecting to Camp Ashraf’s closure, but only asking for its residents to be relocated inside Iraq, which would make it easier for more of them to be killed.

The conduct of the U.N.’s refugee agency, in relation to people it accepts as asylum seekers whose claims demand adjudication, also has been lacking in humanity. It has a duty to process their claims, but it declines to do so inside the camp. It has persistently delayed whilst claiming to look for a ”safe” location to conduct interviews outside the camp, although it must be obvious that for Iranian dissidents, no location in Iraq is “safe” from Maliki’s army and police.

Although no one doubts that these Iranians would face persecution if returned to Iran, the UNHCR claims, wrongly in law, that it cannot accord the group refugee status until each and every one of them has been interviewed. This special treatment, it says, is because the MEK has “a history of armed activities.” But that is not international law, and in any event the group’s armed activities ended in 2001. By deliberately stalling on any peaceful solution and putting at risk the lives of those it should be protecting, the UNHCR is playing Iran’s game.

Ironically, the Obama administration has given a free kick to Camp Ashraf’s enemies with its failure to lift its “terrorist” designation on the MEK. This designation was removed by court order in the U.K., where the court described it as “perverse,” and in Europe, but the label remains in the U.S., pursuant to Section 219 of its Immigration and Nationality Act. Over a year ago a U.S. court ordered the State Department to reconsider, because the designation had been made without due process. The failure of the State Department to do so provides the tormentors of the Ashraf refugees—Iran and the pro-Iranian Iraqi government—with a bogus excuse to deny them their rights.

Many American and British soldiers died for the cause of liberating Iraq from Saddam’s oppression; it is galling to see his successor behaving with comparable brutality. Iraq is now a sovereign state and its power to expropriate Camp Ashraf, after paying appropriate compensation, cannot be doubted. But nor can its duty under international law to protect these refugees and give them safe passage out of Iraq, where they will be persecuted, and avoid Iran, where they will be killed. European countries should give them refuge—France, in particular, which wrongly expelled many of them in 1986. Until that can be arranged, Camp Ashraf must remain. Otherwise, in just a few weeks time, it is very likely that more of its residents will be massacred.

Geoffrey Robertson QC was president of the U.N.’s war crimes court in Sierra Leone and is the author of Crimes Against Humanity: The Struggle for Global Justice (The New Press).

Filed Under: Camp Ashraf, News Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

To most of the world, Iranian dissidents are not terrorists

December 8, 2011 by

THE WASHINGTON POST

Letter to the Editor

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki [“Building a stable Iraq,” op-ed, Dec. 6] made clear the pretext that has been used to justify his country’s policy of brutality against the approximately 3,400 members of the Iranian dissident group the Mujahedin el-Khalq (MEK), located at Camp Ashraf, 60 kilometers north of Baghdad. “The camp’s residents,” he stated, “are classified as a terrorist organization by many countries, and thus have no legal basis to remain inIraq.” 

This is untrue. Only theUnited StatesandCanada— and, of course,Iran— continue to maintain the MEK on their respective lists of terrorist organizations. More than two years ago, an appellate court inBritainthrew out that designation as baseless, and the European Union soon followed suit. 

Nearly three years ago, theUnited Statesformally relinquished sovereignty overCampAshrafto the Iraqis. In July 2009, and in April of this year, Iraqi forces invaded Ashraf, killing nearly 50 residents and injuring hundreds. More recently, Mr. Maliki has insisted that the people of Ashraf leave the country, although he knows that there is nowhere for them to go, largely because of theU.S.terrorist designation. In apparent preparation for a mass deportation, he proposes to consolidate them in a remote location. With deportation, they quite likely will be left to the tender mercies of the Iranian regime. 

In this context, Mr. Maliki’s expressed interest in seeing the fate of the MEK “resolved peacefully and with the help of the United Nations” will have to await the test of credibility: Actions speak louder than words. 

Allan Gerson and Steven M. Schneebaum, Washington 

The writers are lawyers representing the Mujahedin el-Khalq in theUnited Statesin its efforts to remove the group’s designation as a terrorist entity. 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/to-most-of-the-world-iranian-dissidents-are-not-terrorists/2011/12/06/gIQAi48GgO_story.html

 

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Iraqi MP: Iran Should Give Incentives to Iraq for Expelling MEK

December 8, 2011 by

Stop Fundamentalism

An Iraqi Member of Parliament in Maliki’s bloc told reporters today that it would be a grave mistake for Iraq expelling the MEK without receiving adequate incentives from Iran, said Shafagh News website.  She also stressed that there are a great many armed groups operating in Iraq supported by the Iranian regime while their cases remain undisclosed.

“Iraq’s foreign policy is full of flaws,” said Batoul Farough from Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s bloc in the Iraqi parliament told to Shafagh news reporter, “one of such mistakes is expelling the MEK without receiving any incentive from the Iranian side.”

“This will result in a situation where Iraq will no longer have a pressure leverage against neighboring countries that intervene in Iraqi affaires,” highlighted Farough.

Another member of the bloc, Ali Al-Alagh, said that the members of the MEK after closing the camp at the end of this year will be taken to various temporary locations specially designated for this purpose in Iraq. He added that Iraq is under a lot of pressure from Iran with this regard.

MEK members are the principal Iranian opposition movement in exile who have lived in Iraq for the past 25 years in a camp internationally known as Camp Ashraf located about 80 kilometers north of Baghdad.  The 3400 residents in the camp are unarmed and are currently being considered for refugee status by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Last April Iraqi forces raided the camp killing 36 residents including 8 women.  Since the incident the Iraqi government has put a blockade on the camp and threatens to close the camp at the end of the year and disperse the residents in different locations in Iraq.  

Residents say that they will not be willingly relocated inside Iraq as that will be tantamount to a group suicide.

Martin Kobler, the United Nations Secretary General Special Envoy to Iraq told a meeting of the Security Council Tuesday that at Ashraf, “Lives are at stake, they need protection,” calling for the UN to take strong measure to prevent a large scale massacre of the resident.

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